


Knifework

by SassySnowperson



Series: Mara Jade Stories [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: First Meetings, Fusion of Star Wars Legends and Disney Canon, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:14:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28364490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SassySnowperson/pseuds/SassySnowperson
Summary: Willon Dusk ran, because he was a traitor and a coward. Talon Karrde chased him, because Dusk had information he needed.Dusk ran into a kitchen.
Relationships: Mara Jade & Talon Karrde
Series: Mara Jade Stories [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2060385
Comments: 11
Kudos: 30





	Knifework

**Author's Note:**

> That's right, we're bringing back Karrde too :D

Willon Dusk ran. Of course he ran. Karrde should have seen it coming. Dusk was a defector twice over: from the Empire to the Crimson Dawn, from the Crimson Dawn to the grey streets of Port Deadau. The man was a coward, through and through. When confronted with the truth of his past, of course he bolted. 

It would have been _convenient_ if he had had the decency to wait until at least the appetizer course had finished before bolting. Karrde was paying, after all. If he had waited, he would have learned that Karrde wasn't here to be the long arm of justice finally catching up to his many bloody crimes and betrayals. In fact,Karrde he had been willing to offer fresh scandocs to the treacherous bastard if he would just give up the information on the Imperial asteroid mining ship he had once been stationed on. But no. As soon as Karrde had mentioned Dusk's real name, he had bolted up out of his chair and ran. Which meant that if Karrde wanted his information, Karrde was going to have to chase him. 

How undignified. But, ultimately, the data would be worth it. 

Karrde went tearing off after him between the restaurant tables of the mid-range diner Karrde had used for the meeting. Dusk took a sharp left when he reached the end of the row and burst through the kitchen doors. Karrde pivoted to follow, calling out an apology to the waiter he startled. 

Karrde pushed through the doors to find his man darting in panicked circles, now trapped in the kitchen. Any minute now he'd realize there had to be a back door for loading beyond the freezer, and they'd be off again. 

"Stay back!" Dusk shouted, instead of using his critical thinking skills. "Stay back, or I'll—" 

Dusk grabbed a knife. The idiot _grabbed a knife_. And then he grabbed some skinny slip of a prep chef, holding her back against his chest with the knife wavering somewhere near her throat. "I'm walking out of here, or the girl dies!" 

This complicated things. Karrde couldn't— 

The girl rolled her eyes. Then she dropped like deadweight, throwing the man off-balance. She got her feet under her, then leapt up with all the force she could, smashing the back of her head into Dusk's nose. 

Karrde was impressed. Someone had taught this girl some self defense. 

Then, while Dusk was still reeling from her blow, she pivoted, grabbed the knife out of his hand, and slit his throat. Arterial blood sprayed bright red over the kitchen. For several eternal seconds, everyone froze, deathly silent. The girl stared down at the knife, looking tired. 

Unexpected. 

The silence couldn't last. Someone was going to start screaming soon. Thinking quickly, Karrde cleared his throat. "I always knew that a sufficiently motivated line cook would be a force to be reckoned with," in his best sardonic tones. 

The girl looked over to him, down at the knife, then back to her station. "Shit," she said. "Blood got in the sauce." 

That seemed to be the breaking point for the assorted kitchen chefs. The place exploded into noise, the loudest being a screeching from the Heptooinian head chef. "You!" he pointed at the girl. 

"Let me guess. Fired?" She sighed and took off her apron, tossing it over the corpse. Conveniently, most of the blood splatter had fallen on the apron, so she looked halfway presentable again. She moved to set the bloody knife over by the dirty dishes. 

"No! No! Keep the knife, get out of my kitchen." The chef's attention swang from the girl to Karrde. "Both of you!" 

Well, his informant was dead, no point in sticking around. But, he mused, as he watched the girl kneel to swipe the blade clean on her old apron before going back to the station and tucking it into her knife roll, perhaps there was something to be salvaged from this meeting after all. 

He gave the head chef a gracious bow, and followed the girl as she tucked her knife roll under her elbow and slung a jacket over her shoulder, before heading out the back of the kitchen. Once they were through the doors he jogged up to walk next to her. 

The girl turned to glare at him, and Karrde took the moment to give her an assessing look of his own. Red hair, green eyes, bright patterned tattoos peeking out from her shirt collar and tumbling down her bicep and forearm. She looked like a chef, on the surface. But there was a quality to her movement, now that Karrde knew to look for it, that spoke to grace and deadly precision. 

Karrde held up his hands in the near-universal 'peace' gesture. "If you need a fast ride out of town, I'm happy to offer it to you," he said quietly. "I think I owe you, considering I'm the one that chased him in there. Nice knifework, by the way." 

The girl snorted. 

"Look," Karrde said, "It was clearly self-defense, but cops get weird when the victim doesn't have a scratch on them, and the perp has a slit throat. And while I would never disparage the knife skills of a talented line chef, I suspect that you didn't get your talents from a kitchen, and would rather a thorough background check _not_ be run on you?" 

"They wouldn't find a thing," she said. It wasn't bragging or boasting. Just pure certainty. Curiouser and curiouser. 

She turned and gave Karrde an appraising look up and down. "Hadn't planned on sticking around much longer anyway." 

"A wanderer," Karrde assessed. 

The girl shrugged, waving her hand back and forth in a 'sort-of' gesture. "I keep moving. Some kitchens are worth coming back to. This one definitely is _not_. So yeah, I'll take the ride." She paused for a moment, before adding, "Try anything and I'll stab you." 

"A very credible threat," Karrde said. He threw a glance over his shoulder. "What a waste," he muttered. 

The girl tilted her head. "What were you chasing him for, anyway?" 

Karrde wasn't in the habit of giving out information for free. But in this case, he felt it was more of an _investment_. The girl didn't scare easy, she was comfortable on the move, and she could both cook and slit a man's throat. Karrde needed more muscle who didn't look like muscle. 

"I have a client who's researching what happened to an old Imperial asteroid mining ship, out in the Reakar Nebula. Vanished. Most of its crew were never heard from again. The gentleman with the knife is one of the few surviving—well, he _was_." 

"Stop trying to make me feel guilty. He might have pulled that stunt on someone that _didn't_ know how to handle themselves," she said crisply. 

"No guilt. Minimal judgement." 

She glared at him. 

"You had him down with the headbutt." Karrde shrugged. "Killing him was effective, a good move for a soldier, but not, perhaps, the savviest." 

"I'm not a soldier," she said, lifting her chin and speaking with clear derision. 

Fascinating. Karrde ran through the options of what she might have been. Spy? Assassin? Bodyguard? He doubted he'd ever get a clear answer, and he didn't need one, honestly. He just needed to know if she'd work for him. 

"Noted," Karrde said with an easy smile. "My point still stands. Anyway, I'll have to start from scratch on that one." 

She grunted. It sounded almost contemplative. For a moment, Karrde believed his sage advice about not killing people if you didn't have to had really had an impact, but then she responded, "If you can get to an old Imp terminal on the logistics chain that's got local storage, you can pull a data dump, and comb it for the information you need later. Closest one I know of is on Blair Four. There was some sort of metal finishing factory over there." 

"Oh, really?" Karrde raised his eyebrows over at her. Maybe he'd learn more of her story than he'd anticipated. 

One corner of her mouth curled up. "And that's all you're getting for free." 

Karrde laughed. "Well, let's get out of here, and draw up a contract, so I can find out if there's any other information you're willing to share, hm?" He paused, then asked, "I hope you'll give me just one more thing for free. What's your name?"

"You first." 

"Demanding payment after all. Well, fair enough. I'm Talon Karrde," Karrde answered easily. "Information broker and grey market businessman." 

"Mara Jade," she replied. After a beat, she added, "Unemployed prep chef."

Karrde laughed. "Well, let’s see if we can't do something about that 'unemployed' part of your title." 

Mara gave a small nod and a ghost of a smile. "I think we can work something out." 

**Author's Note:**

> It was fun to imagine how they might meet, and I was amused to think it might happen as a part of Mara's perfectly-legitimate chef career, instead of the drifter mercenary side of things :D


End file.
